Miss... Chief....

Rachel here. Oh my Reese... how I love her. I love her with all my heart and soul. BUT... sometimes the girl drives me bonkers. :) She's starting to act like a stinker butt once again. If the child has 1 minute of downtime all hell can break loose. She's not a BAD kid, but the child can be super naughty... if that makes sense. Emma Grace is hitting her terrible two's stride with vengeance, and unfortunately Reese can feed into that. It can make for a pretty ugly scene... especially in the evenings... when I attempt to make dinner. If I keep Reese's little hands busy, she's the most amazing child you'd ever lay your eyes on.... easy peasy... except for that whole EG thing. I've never been the mother of a 3.5 year old and a 2 year old at the same time, so we're learning as we go. EG wants to do everything Reese does, and Reese wants to do everything. If Reese is doing something, her hands are busy, she stays out of shenanigans... then I can focus on EG and her constant shenanigans. OY VEY! So my attempted solution... give Reese more freedom/responsibilities. I'm slowly turning each room in the house into a more Montessori/child friendly room... which I won't lie... is super fun and makes me nerdy excited. I'm starting with the kitchen, since most of her downtime is while I'm fixing meals. The idea is to make things accessible to her, so she doesn't need any of my help. "Teach them to do it themselves." Reese will now be responsible for 1) getting her own snack in the morning and afternoon after quiet time, 2) pouring her own juice/milk, 3) setting the table for herself and sister for mealtimes, 4) and I may even have her do some of her own dishes (SHE LOVES TO WASH DISHES... SHE'D BE IN HEAVEN!).

This afternoon I worked on clearing out a couple of drawers for her.

BEFORE

AFTER

Here is the beginning of a shelf for her in the fridge. The basket is for her approved refrigerated snacks, and the green container has her watered down juice in it. My hopes are to get small pitchers for her to use or another container like the green one for milk.My next projects for mealtime independence are making her and Emma Grace place mats that show where each dish/utensil goes (so she can set the table), and I need to create a shelf for her in the pantry of approved non-refrigerated snacks. They have these great containers that have easily clickable flaps for little hands to open... and you can get them at the dollar store to boot! Yay for Reesie growing up and learning... boo for Reesie growing up so quickly.